The FMCSA has *yet* to put forth any reliable data as to how any numbers displayed by the SMS relate to increased crash risks, as they display all accidents involving the motor carrier…but not who was adjudicated to be AT FAULT.

I was involved in three reportable accidents inside of two years a few years back, before this current rating system came into being, thank God. For a while there I thought people were angry at my poor Binder.

All three were 100% the fault of the other vehicle operator. Two different time another CMV operator backed into my parked vehicle at a shipper, another time I was struck while on the road by a lost set of drive duals from an on-coming CMV.

Why should other people’s lack of driving competence, attention to wehat they are doing, or vehicle maintenance standards have an impact on *my* safety rating?

Case in point: I didn’t lose my drive duals and rip the left side of my tractor apart, the jerk driving his clapped-out dump bucket did it *to* me…yet under the SMS, it would have shown up as me being an increased crash risk by being involved in an accident.

An accident I had zero control over. An accident I had no fault in causing.